Livros sobre música que vale a pena ler - Cromo #98: "Conform To Deform - The Weird & Wonderful World Of Some Bizzare"

 

autor: Wesley Doyle
título: Conform To Deform - The Weird & Wonderful World Of Some Bizzare

editora: Jawbone Press
nº de páginas: 376
isbn: 978-1-911036-95-1
data: 2023
1ª Edição / 1st Edition

Along with Factory, and Creation, Some Bizzare was the vanguard of outsider music in the 1980s. The label’s debut release reads like a who’s who of electronic music, featuring early tracks from Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Blancmange, and THE THE, while over the next decade its roster would include artists such as Marc Almond, Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubauten, Foetus, Swans, Coil and Psychic TV.

For a time, Some Bizzare was the most exciting independent record label in the world, but the music is only half of the story. Self-styled label boss Stevo Pearce’s unconventional dealings with the industry are legendary. Sometimes they were playful, other times less so; either way, he was a force to be reckoned with. His preternatural ability to spot talent meant his label was responsible for releasing some of the decade’s most forward-thinking, transgressive, and influential music.

The Some Bizzare story spans the globe: from ecstasy parties in early 80s New York to video shoots in the Peruvian jungle, from multimedia events in disused tube stations to seedy sex shows in Soho. There are million-selling singles, run-ins with the Vice Squad, destruction at the ICA, death threats, meltdowns, and, of course, sex dwarves. And the centre of it all is Stevo: DJ, entrepeneur, label boss, manager, art terrorist, disrupter. Conform to Deform is the previously un told story of the music and art he put out into the world, and how a teenager from Dagenham took on the music industry in its pomp and – for a while, at least – beat it at its own game.

 

Wesley Doyle has been a journalist for over twenty years and has written for The Quietus, Record Collector, Long Live Vinyl, and Vive Le Rock. He’s never quite recovered from watching Soft Cell and J.G. Thirlwell tear through Suicide’s ‘Ghost Rider’ on teatime TV back in 1983.

Follow him on Instagram @wesleydoylewrites

The story of Some Bizzare is a worthwhile on to be told, as I suspect there was never such an unconventional record label, or a person running one as fascinating as Stevo. It’s right he has a legacy in the music industry, however chequered it may be.

MARC ALMOND, SOFT CELL / MARC & THE MAMBAS

Stevo exerted huge energy in creating what was – for two or three years, at least – the most exciting independent record company in the UK. For good or bad, he was a larger-than-life character in an industry that’s now so grey, corporate, and sterile that it seems like a lost world.

MATT JOHNSON, THE THE

I felt an affinity with Stevo because he came from a proletarian background and turned it around through force of will and imagination. I admired his chutzpah, and if you were in on the joke it was so funny to watch.

MICHAEL GIRA, SWANS

They were very heady days for Some Bizzare, and there was a lot of success. Probably enough time has passed for someone to figure out why what happened, happened.

J.G. THIRLWELL, FOETUS / WISEBLOOD

A person that gives you a false smile is the enemy

STEVO

  

INTRODUCTION

ON JULY 15, 1983, the electronic duo Soft Cell appeared on the Channel 4 music show Switch. The pair – Marc Almond and Dave Ball – had scored a massive global hit two years previously with their cover of Gloria Jones’s ‘Tainted Love’, but since that initial success they seemed unconcerned about maintaining a career as pop stars, and their music had become darker and consciously less commercial. For their Switch appearance, they appeared as they always had done: Almond up front with Ball on keys at the back. They rattled through a ramshackle version of forthcoming single ‘Soul Inside’ before Almond introduced saxophonist Gary Barnacle and guest vocalist Clint Ruin. Sat in front of the TV, my fourteen-year-old self was unaware that his life was about to take a turn.

Ruin – resplendent in leather jacket, aviator shades, and gravity-defying quaff – emitted a blood-curdling scream before the drum machine kicked in and he and Marc Almond began trading lines. Ball abandoned his keyboard from some heavily distorted guitar, and Barnacle seemed to be playing a different song entirely. The reverb on the vocals soon made whatever words were being sung indecipherable, and Almond and Ruin ended up in a heap on the floor, entangled in microphone leads, screaming into each other’s faces. Five minutes in and, with the cacophony showing no sign of an end, the producers ran the credits and the screen faded to black. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen.

I was already a big fan of Soft Cell. I’d liked ‘Tainted Love’, but I didn´t properly fall for their seedy synth-pop until the follow-up single, ‘Bedsitter’. I was given their debut album. Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, for Christmas in 1981 and eagerly followed their exploits in the pages of Smash Hits and occasionally Sounds or Record Mirror. As much as I loved Soft Cell, though, it was the 1983 album Untitled by Almond’s side project Marc & The Mambas that really expanded my musical horizons. It wasn’t just the other artists’ songs he covered – Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Syd Barrett; all new to me – it was the people he worked with: Anni Hogan, the preternaturally talented pianist who would be at Almond’s side for much of his 80s solo works; and Matt Johnson, who co-wrote and played on several tracks. Johnson also recorded as THE THE, and when his ‘Uncertain Smile’ single was released a few months later, I bought it on spec. It remains one of my favourite records. Soon, I started to notice all this new music had the same two words on the sleeves: Some Bizzare.

They also had cryptic messages, signed by the mysterious ‘Ø’. ‘You can only have 100% trust in yourself.’ ‘Destruction is not negative, you must destroy to build.’ ‘With every kick in the face and every hurdle you pass the rewards get greater.’ Through the music press I discovered ‘Ø’ was in fact Some Bizzare boss Stevo, who, despite only being a teenager, was managing these artists and brokering deals with major record labels on their behalf. The more I read about Stevo, it became apparent that he was as much a focus for the press as his artists, and he was heavily involved in how they were presented to the world.

Part of that presentation was the artwork that adorned the records – all Some Bizzare releases had the most incredible sleeves. Whether the vivid images captured by photographer Peter Ashworth, the evocative design and brush work of Huw Feather, the beautifully grotesque paintings of Val Denham, or the twisted and disturbing art of Andy ‘Dog’ Johnson, the visual side of Some Bizzare was as striking as the music.

The uncredited song Soft Cell played on that Switch performance was ‘Ghostrider’ by Suicide. I also discovered that ‘Clint Ruin’ was an Australian called J.G. Thirlwell, who recorded under the name Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel – you can imagine how that went down in my local Our Price. I set about seeking out not only the music of other Some Bizzare artists but the bands they aligned with: Nick Cave, The Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Danielle Dax, Sex Gang Children. I also caught the Batcave tour when it came to the neighbouring town of At. Albans. I’d found my tribe.

When Marc & The Mambas’ second album, Torment And Toreros, arrived later in the year, it shocked and elated me in equal measure. It was dark, passionate, vicious, tortured, beautiful, and damned. Johnson wasn’t on it this time, but the name Frank Want was. That name also featured on THE THE’s debut album, Soul Mining. Frank, it transpired, was another pseudonym for J.G. Thirlwell. The pieces were falling into place.

Nostalgia was a notable absence in the early-to-mid 80s; there was no looking back, the momentum was always forward. I never bought a record from a previous decade – why would I? There was so much going on right in front of me. Everything about Some Bizzare was new – the artists, the attitude. It was transgressive but courted the mainstream, it was oblique but wanted to communicate, it was niche but didn’t see why it couldn’t be incredibly successful. I made many a blind purchase during this time. As a teenager, this was a great financial risk: £5.49 was a lot of money, so you had to commit to your purchases. Not that I ever had any problem with Foetus or Cabaret Voltaire record, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some worrying moments when Psychic TV and Einstürzende Neubauten first hit the turntable. And as for Swans… But I persevered, and through Some Bizzare my ideas of what popular music could be kept expanding.

So who were the people who brought these new sounds to us? I was endlessly fascinated by Stevo and the Some Bizzare family. On record-buying trips to London, I would wander through St Anne’s Court, past the Some Bizzare offices at Trident Studios, and look up at the windows. What is going up on there? I’d wonder. Plenty, as I’ve since found out.

Much as been written about maverick record label bosses from the 1980s, including Creation’s Alan McGee, Factory’s Tony Wilson, and Postcard’s Alan Horne, all of whom were, to varying degrees, headline-makers in their own right. Stevo and Some Bizzare have a roster to rival them all, yet his tale remained untold. His label released music that was challenging and credible yet still capable of serious commercial success. Both as record label and management company, Some Bizzare not only brought the world Soft Cell and THE THE but also gave left-field acts such Cabaret Voltaire, Psychic TV, and Einstürzende Neubauten a decent crack at mainstream success. Yet for all the incredible music Some Bizzare produced, the impact these releases had on popular culture, and the cast of colourful characters – not least of all Stevo himself – no one had been prepared to get that story down. I couldn’t understand why. So my reason for writing this book is simple: I wanted to read it, and it seemed no one else was going to do it.

Once a publishing deal was in place, it was a case of tracking the relevant people down and convincing them to contribute. It became apparent that Stevo’s complex business relationships with the artists and major labels he licensed them to might just be the reason this book hadn’t been written before. It would surely take a lawyer, not a music writer, to unravel all the contractual disputes and labyrinthine legal wrangles that plague the label to this day. But that would have made for a very dull book indeed. Instead, I channeled my fourteen-year-old self and wrote the Some Bizzare book he would have wanted to read: light on litigation, heavy on the music and the mavericks who made it.

The process of writing this oral history has given me the opportunity to talk with those mavericks. It’s been a labour of love, and I hope I’ve done them and their work justice. A few key artists are sadly no longer with us, and a couple didn’t want to be involved. But of the eighty or so individuals I interviewed, most had happy memories of the time when the Some Bizzare offices – wherever they happened to be – became not just a workplace but a home.

As for Stevo – who initially took a lot of convincing to be involved, then eventually tried to take over – he was everything I could have wanted and more. A complicated, contrary figure who feels shut out from the industry in which made his name, he is the Peter Pan of post-punk. His desire to correct the record and right wrongs as he saw them left me with hours and hours of audio to work with. And despite the bluster and obfuscation – intentional and otherwise – he’s still capable of creating sparks of genius. He is also a genuinely funny man. No matter how exasperating he can be – and believe me, he can – I could never truly feel aggrieved by Stevo. I sincerely hope his plans for a Some Bizzare relaunch come to fruition, and all the music he facilitated in the 80s and 90s and beyond will be remastered and available as shiny new reissues. I’ll be the first person in the queue for them.

Just I was finishing off this book, Soft Cell headed out to play their first North American shows in twenty years. The five-date tour – sadly without Dave Ball for health reasons – arrived at New York’s Beacon Theatre on August 30, 2022. After playing through a selection of new and back catalogue material, Marc Almond announced a special guest for the encore, and out strode J.G. Thirlwell, still stick thin, this time resplendent in a white suit. They tore through “Ghostrider”, just as they had on that TV show nearly four decades earlier. It was just as wild and chaotic, beautiful, and righteous – weird and wonderful. Still Bizzare after these years.

WESLEY DOYLE, OCTOBER 2022